On this day: January 7

2012: Katy Perry's album "Teenage Dream" becomes the first album in history to have seven songs from the same album reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart. This was official as soon as the single "The One That Got Away" hit No. 1. The previous six singles to reach No. 1 on the chart were "California Gurls," "Teenage Dream," "Peacock," "Firework," "E.T." and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)."

2005: Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announce they are separating after four years of marriage.

1999: The Senate trial in the impeachment of U.S. President Bill Clinton begins, with Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist presiding. The first day consisted of formal presentation of the charges against Clinton, and of Rehnquist swearing in all arguants in the trial. Clinton would eventually be acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice on Feb. 12, 1999.

1990: Bronko Nagurski, a member of both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame, dies at the age of 81 in International Falls, Minnesota. Playing both fullback and defensive tackle, Nagurski led the University of Minnesota to a 18-4-2 record and the 1927 Big Ten Championship during his time there. He then played for the Chicago Bears from 1930 to 1937, helping the team win several division titles and two NFL championships. With professional teams short of players during World War II, he returned for one final season with the Bears in 1943, scoring a touchdown in Chicago's championship victory against Washington.

1990: The interior of the Leaning Tower of Pisa is closed to the public because of safety concerns. After a decade of corrective reconstruction and stabilization efforts, the tower would be reopened to the public on Dec. 15, 2001, and be declared stable for at least another 300 years.

1989: Japanese Emperor Hirohito, who saw Japan emerge as the world's second largest economy by the end of his 62-year reign, dies of duodenal cancer at the age of 87 at Fukiage Palace in Tokyo.

1986: Children's book author and illustrator P. D. Eastman, a protege of Dr. Seuss who wrote books such as "Are You My Mother?," "Go, Dog. Go!," "Big Dog... Little Dog" and "Red Stop! Green Go!," dies of pneumonia at the age of 76 in Cresskill, New Jersey.

1985: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.

1982: The TV drama "Fame," which follows the lives of the students and faculty at the fictional New York City High School for the Performing Arts, premieres. The show, based off the 1980 movie of the same name, would run for six seasons and spawn several hit records and live concert tours by the cast.

1980: President Jimmy Carter signs legislation giving a U.S. government guarantee to $1.5 billion in loans to Chrysler to help them stay open until they could bring some new vehicles to market. Chrysler, which also had to raise $2 billion on its own as part of the deal, would end up rebounding and paying off the loans seven years early in 1983.

1977: Actor Dustin Diamond, best known for playing the character Samuel "Screech" Powers on "Saved by the Bell," is born in San Jose, California.

1973: A week after shooting and killing two police officers in an attack on the New Orleans Police Department, former U.S. Navy dental technician Mark Essex fatally shoots another seven people and wounds eight more at a Howard Johnson's Hotel. Using a military helicopter and snipers on nearby buildings, police were later able to shoot and kill Essex, who had taken cover in a concrete cubicle on top of the hotel's roof.

1971: Actor Jeremy Renner, an Academy Award-nominee for "The Hurt Locker" and "The Town," is born in Modesto, California. Renner is also known for his roles in "Marvel's The Avengers," "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol" and "The Bourne Legacy."

1968: Surveyor 7, the last lunar lander of the American unmanned Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the moon, lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It would land on the moon's surface three days later.

1964: The comedy "The Pink Panther," starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Robert Wagner, Capucine, and Claudia Cardinale, and directed by Blake Edwards, premieres in London, England. In its animated opening credits, the film introduced the cartoon character of the same name. The movie focused on Niven's role as Sir Charles Litton, the infamous jewel thief nicknamed "the Phantom," and his plan to steal the Pink Panther diamond. However, Sellers was so popular that the resulting movie series would be built on his bumbling French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

1964: Actor Nicolas Cage, an Oscar-winner for "Leaving Las Vegas" who is also known for movies such as "Raising Arizona," "Adaptation" and "National Treasure," is born in Long Beach, California.

1960: At the Cape Canaveral, Florida, missile test base, the Polaris missile is launched for the first time. The two-stage solid-fuel nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile would remain in service by the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy from 1961 through 1996.

1959: Six days after the fall of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in Cuba, the United States recognizes the new Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

1958: Gibson patents its Flying V electric guitar.

1957: Broadcast journalist and talk show host Katie Couric is born in Arlington, Virginia.

1956: Actor David Caruso, best known for his roles in the TV crime dramas "NYPD Blue" and "CSI: Miami," is born in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, New York.

1953: In his final State of the Union address before Congress, U.S. President Harry S. Truman tells the world that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.

1950: Actress Erin Gray, best known for her roles as Kate Summers in the TV sitcom "Silver Spoons" and as Col. Wilma Deering in the sci-fi TV series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," is born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

1948: Singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins, known as part of the duo Loggins and Messina as well as for his solo work, is born in Everett, Washington. Some of his most popular songs come from movie soundtracks, including "Footloose," "Danger Zone" from "Top Gun," and "I'm Alright" from "Caddyshack."

1946: Jann Wenner, the co-founder and publisher of the magazine Rolling Stone, is born in New York City.

1943: Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-born inventor and electrical engineer best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system, dies of coronary thrombosis at the age of 86 in Manhattan, New York.

1929: The first science-fiction comic strip, "Buck Rogers 2429 A.D.," premieres in newspapers around the U.S. The title of the strip would later be changed to "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century."

1927: In front of 300 fans in Hinckley, Illinois, the Harlem Globetrotters play their first game. The total game payout was $75. The team, newly renamed from the "Savoy Big Five" after Chicago's Savoy Ballroom, also initially toured Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, playing night-in and night-out against any and all comers.

1927: The first transatlantic telephone service is established from New York City to London, England.

1913: Hall of Fame baseball player Johnny Mize, a 10-time All-Star who won five World Series titles in a row with the New York Yankees, is born in Demorest, Georgia. Mize also played for the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Giants in his 15-year career. He died at age 80 on June 2, 1993.

1912: Cartoonist Charles Addams, known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters, including "The Addams Family," is born in Westfield, New Jersey. He died of a heart attack at age 76 on Sept. 29, 1988.

1904: The Morse code distress signal "CQD" is established, only to be replaced a few years later by "SOS" because it's quicker to transmit.

1800: Millard Fillmore, who would become the 13th president of the United States in 1850, is born in Summerhill, New York.

1610: Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons (the four largest satellites of Jupiter: Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa), although he is not able distinguish the last two until the following day.

1536: Catherine of Aragon, who was queen of England from 1509 until 1533 as the first wife of King Henry VIII, dies at age 50 in Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire, England. Upset that the marriage hadn't produced any surviving sons, Henry had their marriage declared invalid and banished her from the court so that he could marry his mistress Anne Boleyn. Henry had first tried to have the marriage to Catherine annulled, leading England to split with the Roman Catholic Church over Pope Clement VII's refusal to grant the annulment.

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